Christopher Beaumont’s ancestors ruled the tiny island of Sark as a feudal state for 443 years until, in 2008, the billionaire Barclay brothers “forced democracy on the island”, as he puts it.
Now Beaumont, 66, is leading a charm offensive to attract new members of the global super-rich to help fund a takeover of the Barclay family’s string of abandoned hotels and other buildings on the island to create a tax- and car-free “biodiverse utopia”, 111 nautical miles from Southampton.